


while darkness turns to light (take me where I’ve never been)

by OsleyaKomWonkru



Series: Two Serpents and Their Garden [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Deep Conversations, Diyoza Has Octavia's Best Interests At Heart, Domesticity, Episode: s07e02 The Garden, Gen, Healing as a Process, Hope, Hope Melts Everyone's Hearts, Mentions of Scarcity-Induced Disordered Eating, Octavia is Stubborn, POV Charmaine Diyoza, POV Octavia Blake, Trigedasleng, mentions of cannibalism, or attempts at such
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24522193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OsleyaKomWonkru/pseuds/OsleyaKomWonkru
Summary: In the hours and days after Hope's birth, Diyoza tries to convince Octavia to accept the healing that time on the planet they'd later know as Skyring could offer her. After some chores, psychoanalysis and memories of her past, Octavia begins to come around to the idea.“You know continuing to punish yourself for the Dark Year isn’t going to bring those people back.”Octavia stopped dead in her tracks, but didn’t turn back. Diyoza observed her closely, seeing how Octavia’s shoulders tensed, hands balling up into fists over and over again.“How can you even say that phrase in your daughter’s presence?” Octavia’s voice was low and words carefully chosen.“She’s a few hours old. She doesn’t even know what words are yet. And I need you to deal with your shit before sheisold enough to understand any of it, you get me?”“How? How do I do that?”
Relationships: Octavia Blake & Charmaine Diyoza, Octavia Blake & Charmaine Diyoza & Hope Diyoza, Octavia Blake/Ilian (mentioned), Octavia Blake/Lincoln (mentioned)
Series: Two Serpents and Their Garden [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772128
Comments: 4
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 7x02 gave me a lot of Feelings. There's so MUCH of those ten years in their own Eden that has stories that need to be told. So this is a new series where I'm putting all of those feelings so that they don't interfere with my own S7 series. 7x02 was such a blessing, I'm so glad we were able to have that even when I know that everything's going to blow up again. Sigh. At least Octavia's been able to have some peace in her life.
> 
> Trigedasleng is translated inline.
> 
> **Warning:** Mentions of disordered eating, as induced by the scarce conditions that Octavia's lived in her entire life.

“Where are you going?” Diyoza asked as Octavia walked away.

“To the Anomaly, where do you think?”

“Octavia. _Octavia!”_ Diyoza called out with exasperation, watching her disappear through the trees without looking back. The girl was certainly determined, she’d give her that.

Hope made a gurgling noise as she finished eating, and Diyoza looked down at her with a soft smile as she pulled her shirt back into place.

“I’m not worried. No chance she’ll even make it back to the middle of the lake, let alone down to the glow.” Diyoza whispered. “We’ll go check on her in awhile, and eventually she’ll see what a gift this place is for all of us.”

Hope gurgled again, and Diyoza held her close, burping her up against her shoulder. Once Hope was done, she wrapped her back up in the blanket and began her slow stroll down to the lakefront, stopping every so often to rest against one of the trees.

She hadn’t expected to find Octavia collapsed in the shallows, sobbing into the water that lapped up around her. Diyoza sighed, moving Hope to one arm and grabbing the back of Octavia’s shirt with her free hand, yanking her up onto the beach.

“I hope you’ve realized now that to get down there, you’d need a proper diving suit and years of training with an expert. All the experts I know died on Earth when the bombs came.”

Octavia didn’t respond.

“Why are you doing this, anyway? What do you have waiting for you besides a toxic forest full of quicksand and plants that want to eat you?”

“My brother. He needs to know about the Primes. I have to help him.” Octavia dragged herself to her feet and made to stagger back to the water, but Diyoza was faster and yanked her back, dropping her back on her ass in the sand.

Diyoza planted herself between Octavia and the lake. “Time here passes a lot faster than it does there. You _have_ time. Rest. Eat something. When was the last time you had a proper meal?”

Octavia looked up at her with a dark look. “Over a hundred and thirty one years ago.”

A hundred and twenty-five years in cryosleep. Six years… in the bunker. Diyoza remembered what Kane had said about that time and winced internally. She softened her gaze as she looked back to Octavia.

“I’ll make something for you. But you need to come back to the cabin and take care of Hope while I do that.”

Something sparked in Octavia’s eyes at the mention of Hope, and she nodded, though her expression remained sorrowful as she looked down again. “This must be the last thing you were thinking of doing on the day your daughter was born.”

Diyoza reached out a hand and helped Octavia stand. “It’s better than what I thought I’d be doing when I was sure I’d be on a planet giving birth alone.”

They walked back to the cabin in silence. Diyoza passed Hope over to Octavia and directed her to a place to sit next to the fire pit. She stirred the coals back to life and went over to her food preparation area, chopping up some of the vegetables and throwing them in a pot with water, mixing in a few herbs before she set it over the newly blazing fire. Then she took a seat next to Octavia.

“Plants here are a lot like Earth. Cultivating them instead of gathering wild is going to be a bitch, but I’ve been saving seeds. Building garden beds. With some trial and error, we’ll have the gardens flowering before we have to hike too far for wild roots.”

“Looks like you’re here for the long haul.” Octavia’s voice was snippy again.

“There’s nothing for me to go back to on Sanctum. Like I said, this place makes me happy. It can make you happy too, if you let it.”

“I can’t. My brother’s back there. If I just learn to hold my breath long enough -”

“Sure, waste your time on that if you want. But if that’s all you do, you’re missing the whole point.”

“The point of what?”

“Why you’re here. What brought you here.”

“I’m here because I walked into the Anomaly after you.”

“And why did we go to the Anomaly?”

“To heal me.”

“Right. And?”

“And I’m healed. Mission accomplished.”

Diyoza chuckled as she stirred the pot. “You’re not healed. Your arm might not be old and gnarly anymore, but that doesn’t mean you’re healed. In my day we’d send people to a shrink or lock them up in a psych ward rather than throw them out into the woods, but when those woods have a glowing green portal to a new peaceful world where time moves over a million times faster, you take that opportunity if you’ve got it.”

“What _opportunity?_ What’s a shrink? Or a psych ward?”

“A psych ward is where they used to send people who were crazy. Shrinks were people who talked to them to help them get better.”

Octavia stood up and backed away, tightening her hold on Hope. “I am _not_ crazy.”

Diyoza softened her voice as much as possible. “There’s no shame in it. You’ve been through a lot. At your age, I - I couldn’t even imagine all of that happening to me.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know you better than you think. How do you think I knew precisely which of your buttons to push in our war?”

Octavia bit her lip, shifting from one foot to the other. “Kane.”

“Yeah. He told me a lot about you. Heavily coated in his bias, but I’m from a world very different than his. I could see the cracks in his story.”

“And which of those cracks told you I was _crazy?_ And why would you trust a _crazy_ person with your child?”

“Because I also know that you’re a caring person who would never harm an innocent and would do everything in your power to protect a child.”

“Never harm an innocent.” Octavia repeated, scoffing. “Right.” She passed Hope back to Diyoza and turned to walk away. “I’m not hungry.”

“You know continuing to punish yourself for the Dark Year isn’t going to bring those people back.”

Octavia stopped dead in her tracks, but didn’t turn back. Diyoza observed her closely, seeing how Octavia’s shoulders tensed, hands balling up into fists over and over again.

“How can you even say that phrase in your daughter’s presence?” Octavia’s voice was low and words carefully chosen.

“She’s a few hours old. She doesn’t even know what words are yet. And I need you to deal with your shit before she _is_ old enough to understand any of it, you get me?”

“How? How do I do that?”

“Right now? By sitting back down and eating your dinner. A good hearty vegetable stew will do you good. Then some sleep.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“It isn’t. But it’s a start. Kane told me a lot. And one thing he told me is that you’ve never had a day of peace in your life. He thought that meant you’d never be able to. But he was wrong. This is day one. Take it for the gift that it is, and we’ll start the rest in the morning.”

Octavia sat back down and sighed, resting her head in her hands. “I don’t know how to do this. This is not who I am. I tried once. It - it didn’t end well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before Praimfaya, I… I tried giving up violence. This grounder named Ilian burned down the Ark, and Skaikru wanted him dead. I was going to shoot him.”

“But you didn’t. Kane told me that story. You dropped the gun and ran away.”

“Yeah. But he doesn’t know what came next. No one does. No one alive, anyway.”

“Then tell me.”

“The black rain came. Radioactive rain that would kill you if you stayed in it too long. I ended up taking shelter in a cave with that same guy I’d tried to shoot earlier that same day.”

“Ilian.”

“Yeah. I - I was lost. Broken. So was he. He’d killed his family because of ALIE, and… anyway. He just kept needling at me, telling me the truth that I didn’t want to hear, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to walk out into the rain, just to end it, but he stopped me. Then I kissed him, and one thing led to another, and… the next morning, I threw my knives into a pond and went back to his farm with him.” She smiled briefly. “With him and his stupid sheep. But it didn’t last.”

“What happened?”

“Some of his clan showed up. Recognized me as _Skairipa,_ Roan’s assassin back in Polis. They attacked me. I ended up killing them all with my hoe. I knew I couldn’t be who Ilian wanted me to be, so I fled to Polis for the war and ended up accidentally signing up to represent my clan in the Conclave instead. Ilian also showed up to fight for his clan. He saved my life when I was about to have to fight three others at once. We killed them, but as soon as that fight was over, someone shot him through the throat with an arrow.” A soft sob escaped Octavia’s lips. “He asked me to kill him so he wouldn’t suffer, so… so I did.”

“Every soldier has had to make that call at some point.”

“I tried peace. But the world has never let me stop fighting.”

“Maybe _that_ world didn’t. But _this_ world only has you, me and Hope on it. The only thing you have to fight here is yourself.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. That’s the hardest job of all, facing yourself. After I got disillusioned with the military I should have just disappeared and gone to drink margaritas on some foreign beach. Instead I decided to fight back against that government that I hated, and while I know that my motives were pure and that that government deserved to be taken down, I know now that the ends don’t always justify the means. A lot of innocents died. So if this is a competition and your only innocent kills were those three people who refused to eat their friends and family, then welcome to motherhood.”

Diyoza placed Hope back into Octavia’s shocked arms, and stood up to go get some bowls and ladled out the stew. “Here. Eat.”

Seeing that Diyoza wasn’t reaching to take Hope back, while still shoving a bowl at her, Octavia tried in vain to figure out how she could eat with the child in her arms.

Eventually Diyoza chuckled. “I’ll get the cradle.”

Setting down the bowls, Diyoza stepped inside to bring the cradle out to the fire, and Octavia placed the little girl in it carefully.

“You’re not actually serious about -” Octavia started, looking completely terrified, unsure how to continue that sentence.

“You being her mother instead of me? No. But you are going to be in her life. The serpents of Earth have found a whole new planet. A new Eden. Let’s not fuck this one up.”

Octavia nodded and they lifted their bowls, tapping them against each other, before digging in.

* * *

Diyoza awoke to Hope’s cries as the sun began to rise.

“Hey baby girl.” She whispered as she picked her up, cradling her close so that she could eat. Hope latched on hungrily as Diyoza’s eyes swept the room, looking for Octavia, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Her boots sat by the door though, so Diyoza didn’t think that she’d disappeared back to the lake already.

A clatter on the roof and then Octavia’s bare feet using the window grate as a ladder gave her her answer, and a few seconds later Octavia came in the door, rubbing her eyes and yawning, blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

“You slept on the roof?” Diyoza asked her.

“Yeah?” Octavia shrugged.

“Any particular reason?”

“I spent sixteen years locked in a windowless room on a space station. Another year in a windowless cell. Six years locked under the ground. One hundred and twenty five years in an ice coffin. Wouldn’t you want to see the stars after all of that?”

“I guess I can’t argue with that.”

“How’s Hope?”

“Mostly slept through the night. Yesterday was a big day for her after all. While she’s eating, how about you get us some breakfast? There’s some nuts and berries in the next room.”

“Okay.”

Diyoza stood up and went outside, breathing in the fresh air. It still seemed such a miracle, that there was this unspoiled place in the universe. She remembered the dust storms that had plagued Earth in the years before she left it, the climate crisis that was all over the news when she was a child. Then war had ended the world before Mother Earth herself could.

But this was a new world. A world without any of that which they’d left behind, and she was grateful for it. She just needed Octavia to realize the same.

Octavia appeared by her side, a plate in her hands with some handfuls of berries and a handful of nuts laid out very carefully which she held out for inspection.

“That’s it?” Diyoza asked. “I’m eating for two here, and you’re going to need your energy.”

“There weren’t many left.”

“We can get more. The forest to the south of us is full of berry bushes. I haven’t picked a lot at once, they spoil quickly once they’re off the vine. Go back inside, load up the rest, we can pick more later.”

“Sorry, I… I’m not used to this.”

Diyoza smiled sympathetically. “I know. I know you’re used to carefully planned out rations and only taking the bare minimum of what you need. But you can let go of that now. There’s plenty of food. And if not berries and nuts, then there are root vegetables. Leafy vegetables. There are fruit trees over there that should be bearing fruit in the coming months. Fish in one of the further streams. Even the jellyfish in the lake are edible.”

“Jellyfish? Really?”

“You’re going to judge my food choices?” Diyoza raised an eyebrow. “I needed something for protein before I found the nuts and after I got too pregnant to hike to the further streams for regular fish.”

“I’ll make that hike. Just tell me where to go.”

“Okay. But let’s get the rest of that breakfast first.”

Octavia went back inside while Diyoza took a seat next to the fire pit, surveying the garden beds that she’d started clearing and planting. It would be a lot easier now that there were two of them and she wasn’t pregnant anymore.

When Octavia returned with the plate loaded with the rest of the berries, she sat down next to her and they shared their meal, Octavia also taking note of the different aspects of their surroundings.

“You didn’t build all this in three months. Especially not while pregnant.” Octavia declared. “Where did it come from?”

“It was already here, you’re right. Abandoned though. I didn’t occupy it right away, I scouted the area for a few weeks, about a twenty mile radius. Found no one. So I moved in. There’s wreckage of an Eligius space transport about ten miles off from here. Some of it had been salvaged, some of it just straight up abandoned. I’d have to guess that this is one of the other planets that Eligius III went to, but since their transport crashed, there likely weren’t many survivors. Maybe even just one. So after they died… there was no one else here.”

“And that’s how you want to live?”

“There are worse ways.”

“I can’t give up on my brother. I can’t. Please understand that.”

“I do understand that. But like I said last night, you need to take this opportunity for yourself too. Learn to deal with your shit. Heal from it. So that if you do by some miracle make it back through the Anomaly, you can show him and the rest of those losers that you’re not who they think you are.”

“So what, _you’re_ going to be my shrink?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. I spent a lot of years with a lot of broken people. We helped each other be less broken.”

“Is that where you learned to farm too?”

“As a matter of fact it is. They call me a terrorist, but I was a lot more than that. _We_ were a lot more than that. For every move we made against the government, there were ten more we made to help people. Feed them, protect them, save them from a world that was collapsing around us. The government wasn’t doing it anymore, so we did.”

“But then when judgment day came, they didn’t care how many you saved, only how many you didn’t.”

“Something like that.”

Octavia looked down at the plate in her lap and fell quiet, mechanically eating one nut or berry after another, chewing carefully after each bite, until they had both cleared the plate.

Diyoza didn’t push, knowing that the young woman beside her had a lot on her mind, years of memories and experiences that she’d now have to confront instead of diving into the next battle. Her own experience told her that it wouldn’t be easy. At least Octavia would have a peaceful planet with a simple life with which to come to terms with her past, unlike the harsh solitary confinement and toxic mining camp on Proxima 6 that she’d had.

Octavia stood up abruptly. “I’m going to the lake.”

“Not empty handed, you’re not.”

“What?”

“That’s going to be the rule. You want to go down to the lake and practice holding your breath with the vain hope of someday reaching the Anomaly, then fine. But you don’t go empty handed. You also do the dishes and the laundry, and with a new baby, there’s going to be a lot of laundry. You hear me?”

Octavia rolled her eyes with a huff. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Laundry basket is by the door. Soapnuts on the shelf above.”

Octavia rolled her eyes again and threw all of the dishes into the previous day’s pot, went to collect the basket and soapnuts, and stormed off in the direction of the lake.

“She’ll come around.” Diyoza murmured to Hope. “Tantrums are part of the process. But eventually she’ll let the ice around her heart melt, and we’ll be there to pick up the pieces when it does.”


	2. Chapter 2

Octavia dropped the pot and the basket on the beach and dove into the water without even stopping. Last night she hadn’t even made it out as far as the glow, let alone down to it, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying again.

She’d had ample opportunity to practice swimming in the lake next to Arkadia after the fall of Mount Weather. Lincoln had taught her, and for weeks it had been their only escape from the suffocating walls of Arkadia. After six years in the bunker she was somewhat out of practice, but still kicked her way out to the centre of the lake, over the glow of the Anomaly.

Treading water for awhile to catch her breath, Octavia let her mind wander to those comparatively easy days. As smothering as Arkadia had felt at the time, that was the last time she remembered being at least _content_ for more than a few minutes at a time.

But that was a world long dead and far away. There wasn’t anything she could do to get back to it now. All she had here was the chance to get back to Sanctum and somehow warn her brother about the dangers within Sanctum that he’d be oblivious to as he tried to pretend everything was _good_ and _peaceful._

Taking a deep breath, Octavia plunged under the surface, trying to kick her way down, and realizing almost immediately that it would be harder than she anticipated. She’d need something to weigh her down if she wanted to make it down. 

Not willing to consider it a wasted trip, she stayed underwater as long as she could, counting the seconds that passed to see how long she could make it, to know what she had to work with and how much more she’d have to train.

_Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven…_ Octavia surfaced with a gasp. She’d need much more than that, that was for sure. She tried five more rounds, last time lasting up to a minute, before she swam for shore.

The pot and laundry basket were still there waiting for her. Of course they were, she hadn’t made it through the Anomaly. Diyoza hadn’t expected her to. She sighed and dragged them to the water’s edge, cleaning the dishes first. Leaving them on some rocks to dry, Octavia grabbed the basket of laundry, wrinkling her nose at the smell of dirty diapers. 

“I suppose Diyoza thinks this is character building.” Octavia muttered to herself as she rinsed away what she could in the water, before settling in to scrub the more stubborn stains out of the fabric with the soapnuts.

There was something meditative in it, she supposed, though her senses were constantly on alert, listening for any dangers, though Diyoza had said there were none. She wasn’t ready to accept that, not yet. There was always _something._

But this excursion to the lake ended uneventfully. Everything washed, Octavia carried the dishes and laundry back up to the cabin, throwing the clothes over the clothesline.

“You came back.” Diyoza’s voice came from the door of the cabin.

Octavia shrugged. “It’s going to take practice. Weights. But I’ll get there. If you point me in the direction of that stream and some nets, I can go get some fish that aren’t jellyfish.”

“I just used a fishing line. Wasn’t particularly efficient, one reason I haven’t bothered going back. If you want nets, you’re going to have to make them. You’re in luck, there’s a ball of twine on the top shelf inside.”

“I’ll take the fishing line then.”

“Took that apart to make some different tools. So nets it is. Come on. Hope’s asleep, so sit down, take some time to breathe before rushing off to the next thing, and make those nets. It’ll be good for you.”

“Are you going to shrink at me while I do?”

“Probably.”

Octavia glared at her and went to survey the shelves as Diyoza lingered in the doorway, not taking her eyes off her. The top shelf held a few baskets and a big mess of twine. Not the ball Diyoza had spoken of.

_“That’s_ the ball?”

“What? It’s spherical.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Do you want those fish or not?”

“If I sit here for hours untangling that twine and weaving my net while you analyze me, does that mean I get some peace and quiet when I go to the stream?”

“I had a baby yesterday. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine.”

Octavia grabbed the mess of twine and took a seat on the ground up against one of the garden beds, trying to find an end so she’d at least have somewhere to start from. She could feel Diyoza’s eyes boring into her.

“What?” Octavia demanded to know.

“Nothing.”

“Has to be something, otherwise you wouldn’t be staring at me.”

“I’m just thinking of when we regained control of the ship and opened the door to the mess hall.”

“That was a million years ago. I want to live now, we don’t need to talk about it.”

“We do. Because you’re still not living for yourself. You’re living for your brother. You want to save him, you don’t care what happens to you.”

“Should I? After everything I’ve done?”

“Yes.” Diyoza said kindly, sitting down on the edge of the garden bed not far away. “I was wrong, what I said after the war. I see that now.”

Octavia looked up. “What do you mean?”

“I thought you liked the power. But it was killing you.”

Octavia gave a short nod as she finally found one of the ends of the twine, looking back down at her work. “I didn’t like it. But I _needed_ it so that I could give my people what everyone else was trying to deny them. Including you, by the way.”

“I’m sorry.”

Octavia blinked twice, putting down her twine, losing the end again but she didn’t care. She hadn’t been expecting that. It had been almost an unspoken rule between them that they didn’t _really_ talk about… all of that. But now Diyoza had thrown an olive branch at her and she had to say _something_ more.

“Why did you do it?” Octavia asked, pushing herself up from the ground and sitting next to Diyoza on the edge. “Why did you break the deal you’d made with my brother? We all could have lived in that valley.”

“Too many internal problems to worry about adding an external one. A lot of the prisoners were sick with some sort of lung problem caused by the mining. That’s why we’d led a mutiny in the first place - the crew’s orders had been to abandon us on the asteroid and return to Earth. I had military experience, I led the mutiny, so a fair number did respect me for getting that job done, but that was as far as it went. I wasn’t well-liked. There were a few rebels like me among the prisoners, but most were hardened criminals like McCreary who didn’t care about building a future, just taking what they felt they were owed and screw the rest.”

“Did you have a plan on dealing with that?”

“I did. Cure the illness, but not give it to people like him.” Diyoza reached towards Hope’s cradle, swinging it back and forth gently. “I never want her to know what kind of man her father was, you hear me?”

_“McCreary_ is Hope’s father? Seriously?”

“Hey, we’ve all done things we’re not proud of. But at least something good came from that. We have Hope.”

Octavia got up and walked around to the other side of the cradle, kneeling down beside it and looking down at the little girl. Her eyes opened and Octavia smiled, reaching out a finger that Hope clung onto with her tiny hand.

“That’s what I like to see.” Diyoza said, warmth growing in her voice. “Kane was so wrong about you. I’m sorry about that too.”

“He’s not your responsibility.”

“No, but the way I listened to him was. I’d thought at first maybe once McCreary and his followers died off, then we could talk about integration. Bringing Wonkru over. But Kane convinced me otherwise. He never wanted you to set foot in that valley.”

“Do you know why?”

“So he could still love Abby. He needed you to be the devil so she wouldn’t be.”

So Diyoza knew the full truth of it then. Octavia closed her eyes, taking a long and deep breath, and opened them again. “So what did that matter to you?”

“I needed Abby. You and I, we’d only met the once. You were pretty impressive in that bloody war paint. So I let him build you up into this formidable foe even when I knew deep down that you were probably no different than I’d been - a young woman with a pipe dream for a better world who’d had that hope beaten out of her and could only believe in victory through strength.”

“I tried. I tried so hard.” Octavia whispered, a tear slipping down her cheek as she let some of her walls crumble. “I wanted so much for what I built to be something Lincoln would have been proud of, but… it didn’t matter what I did, someone always had to die. Or we all would have.”

“I know.”

Octavia wiped away the tear and focused back on the cradle. Focused back on Hope, a bright and altogether improbable light in the darkness of the world, untainted by the horrors of their past.

“Hope.” She whispered. “Why did you name her Hope?”

“Kane suggested it, in a moment where he still seemed to have some. I liked it. Because despite everything, I still wanted to believe in a better world. By giving that better world a name and a face, by making _Hope_ something tangible, that gave me hope. She can give you that hope too, if you let her.”

“I do want a better world for her. But I don’t know what I can have to do with that. Kane practically choked himself to death yelling at me. Abby shoved him back into cryo, but he might as well be dead now. You saw what happened to Rose. And the last child I was responsible for, Ethan, in the bunker, he died standing by my side in the gorge.” Tears began to well up in Octavia’s eyes. “How could you even want me around her? Everything I touch dies.”

“I meant it when I said there are no threats here. You’re not a threat either. But if you want to start with something smaller, here.”

Diyoza reached over to a corner of the garden bed and pulled out a handful of something Octavia couldn’t see. 

“Give me your hand.” Diyoza asked.

Octavia wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but did as Diyoza asked, holding out her hand, palm up. Diyoza placed a single seed in the middle of it.

“This is a sunflower seed. I’ve planted a bunch of them in this garden bed, but you take this over to the far one that I haven’t started planting in yet. Plant it, take care of it by making sure it gets enough fresh water if it doesn’t rain, pull away any weeds, all of that. You’ll see that you can nurture life too.”

“You’re serious.”

“I am. Plant that seed, give it a water, and then get back to your nets.”

Octavia looked back at Hope, fondness winding its way into her voice. “Someone else is going to have to let go of my finger first.”

It took a few minutes, but Hope did finally let go of Octavia’s finger… only to wind her hand into a strand of her hair that had dropped over the edge of the cradle. Hope cooed with delight.

“Looks like Hope has found a new favourite toy.” Diyoza chuckled. “Auntie Octavia might be her new favourite person.”

“Auntie Octavia?”

“What, you don’t like it?”

“It’s a bit of a mouthful.”

“You got a better idea? Octavia doesn’t really lend itself to nicknames, and she’s not calling you Auntie Blodreina.”

“Auntie is a family term, right? We didn’t really have anyone like that on the Ark. One child rule and all.”

“Yeah. The sister of the mother or father of the child.”

Octavia couldn’t think of the last time she’d felt like _family._ It had been years. Bellamy had formally disowned her days ago, though it had been years since anything had been right between them. Indra had done the same. But now Diyoza of all people was inviting her into her family.

If they were family now, there was only one name that felt right.

“O.” Octavia whispered. “She can call me Auntie O.”

* * *

Diyoza let Octavia be after their chat about Hope. Must have considered their talk enough for the time being. Octavia was thankful for that, it had already been enough emotional vulnerability for one day.

Not that she’d ever admit it to Diyoza, but it felt nice to have someone care to talk to her like that, on an emotional level and not judge what she was feeling, just provide some gentle guidance on how to move through it.

Once Hope let go of her hair, Octavia went to the garden bed that Diyoza had indicated, and planted her sunflower seed. The soil was already fairly damp, and so she only sprinkled a light amount of extra water onto it.

“Please grow for me.” Octavia whispered to the seed, feeling ridiculous but the silliness of it made her smile. She’d almost forgotten what that felt like, but she knew she’d smiled more in the past day than she had in the past six years. A little whimsy was overdue.

Perhaps Diyoza was right. There was a peace she could find in the stillness of this place, a peace without judgment that Diyoza offered her that she desperately needed. And if a month here was only a second on the Sanctum side… she could afford to spend some time here. It would take her awhile to master the dive to the Anomaly anyhow. 

Mission set, Octavia returned to her mess of twine, finding the end again, and spent an hour unraveling it, then two more making her net. She was ready to fish.

Throwing the net over her shoulder, slipping a knife into her boot and grabbing a bucket, Octavia went inside to find Diyoza dozing in her bed, Hope asleep on her chest. Her heart warmed at the sight and she hated to disturb them, but she didn’t know how far it would be to the stream and needed to get going to be back before dark.

“Hey.” Octavia whispered, shaking Diyoza’s shoulder gently. “Where do I go?”

“Hmm?” Diyoza asked, voice heavy with sleep.

“My net is ready. Which way to the stream with the fish?”

“Go straight in the opposite direction from the lake.” Diyoza murmured, eyes still closed. “First stream you’ll come to doesn’t have fish, it’s shallow enough to cross, but on your way back fill up those canteens with fresh water.” She motioned towards the far corner. “Next stream is about a mile past it, no fish there either. The third stream is the one you’ll be looking for. Bigger and wider than the others. You know how to use the nets? Track your footsteps back, not get lost in the woods?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ll do fine. Was a few hour’s walk for me, you’re not pregnant so you might be able to do it in less time.”

“I’ll be back before dark.”

Octavia pressed a soft kiss to Hope’s head, then slung the canteens over her other shoulder and headed out into the forest.

She came to the first stream in no time at all, wading through its shallows and continuing on. The forest reminded her of the forests around Arkadia, around the dropship, painfully familiar and not alien like the forests of Sanctum had been. It felt almost like _home_ as she half-expected Lincoln or Indra or Nyko or another member of Trikru to step out from behind a tree.

But they weren’t here. They couldn’t be. They were just ghosts in her mind, haunting her thoughts, her dreams, her waking moments. Sure, Indra was still alive, but a world away and asleep in a spaceship, far out of reach and emotionally even more distant.

The forest gave way to a meadow, and Octavia stopped dead in her tracks, everything in her hands dropping to the ground as she reached for a tree to try to keep her balance.

In the shade of the trees along the edge of the meadow grew a number of bushes, dark green in colour but with brilliant white flowers, identical in shape to those that Lincoln had always left for her, marking the way to his home.

There was no way that Diyoza could have known about them, was there? It was all long before Kane or Abby ever set foot on the ground. She doubted that Diyoza had tortured Raven or Murphy for details about Octavia’s early days on Earth, that wouldn’t have been relevant, would it? There was no way she would have known.

Fingers trembling, Octavia reached out and picked one, stroking the soft petals as she remembered Lincoln, tears streaming down her face. She collapsed to her knees, clutching the flower to her chest, releasing all of the sorrow that she’d kept bottled up for years.

_“Moba, Linkon. Ai trana. Ai trana toli.” (Sorry, Lincoln. I tried. I tried so much.)_ Octavia sobbed. _“Ai nou don bos pleni. Ai na bilaik beda.” (I was not good enough. I will be better.)_

Taking a few calming breaths, Octavia wiped her tears away and got back to her feet, tucking the flower into her belt and gathering up her supplies. A few more breaths and she started to make her way across the meadow.

_“Ge smak daun, gyon op nodotaim.” (Get knocked down, get back up.)_ Octavia whispered to herself. _“Em don gaf in bilaik ai fis op. Ai get klin nau.” (He would want me to heal. I know that now.)_

The second stream bubbled up along the far edge of the meadow, and Octavia made her way across it and back into the forest, over a few small hills, seeing the stream she sought ahead of her as she descended from the last hill.

She prowled along the edge of the stream up and down for a bit, watching the movements of the fish, deciding on the best way to approach them. With the time lost from her moment in the meadow with the flowers, Octavia decided the best way to proceed would be to use the net by hand rather than waiting, and thus looked for a a suitable branch to turn her cast net into a scoop net instead.

The fish were plentiful, and Octavia landed nine good-sized fish before her bucket was full. She hoped she’d be able to remember how to smoke them, it had been a few years, but she thought she remembered how things worked in the smokehouse they’d set up by the dropship, she could smoke these fish too so they’d last longer.

The sun was setting as Octavia made it back to the first stream, stopping to take a long drink of water and to fill up the canteens. By the time she was back to the cabin, Diyoza already had a fire going in the fire pit.

“Good haul?” She asked as Octavia approached the pit.

“Yeah. Nine fish, all the bucket could hold. Have two for dinner, string the rest up to smoke them.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Diyoza noticed the flower in her belt. “I see you found something pretty too.”

Octavia set the bucket and the canteens down and reached for the flower, pulling it out of her belt, running a finger over the petals. “Yeah. Reminds me of the man I loved so much that his death, it… it broke me.”

“Lincoln.” Diyoza said. “Kane told me about him. He sounded like a good man.”

“He was. Everything I did to unite the clans, it… it was for him. It’s what he always wanted. I had so much hope when I won the Conclave, hope that we could live together as one. But then look at what that turned into.”

“That’s in the past.” Diyoza said, standing up and bringing Hope over to Octavia. “Look towards the future now. A future with a new Hope and the peace that he wanted for you.”

“A new Hope.” Octavia echoed, taking Hope as Diyoza offered her, the little girl fast asleep as she settled into Octavia’s arms. “And peace for Auntie O.”

Perhaps the idea didn’t have to scare her so much after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from “Recovery Begins” and “Unbreakable” by Fireflight.


End file.
